Sit Down and Take in The Clichés
by SweetG
Summary: -Puck/Kurt, mild AU- So, yeah. He's a vampire. With fangs. And super-strength. And, also, a steady pulse and the need to breathe and, like, eat -which makes him think that as far as vampires go, he's kind of weird-.
1. Chapter 1

He meets her somewhere outside his Fight Club on Friday. She looks about forty, MILFy and compelling. So he flirts, and she smiles. He is charming and introduces himself as Noah, and she reciprocates with a strange sounding La Maga that rings to him as Spanish or something. And she invites him to her house for a drink and he thinks that he's gonna get really, really lucky.

Turns out she really did just want a drink. _From him_.

When he wakes up he's alone, stranded in the middle of nowhere, and there's an aching, jarring sensation entangling his muscles in tight knots that make him want to howl and cry for an hour or two, also his head's been pounded with a hammer from the insides, and he can feel bile rising up to his mouth . He's pretty fucking sure that he's never been in this much pain _ever_.

Also, the sun is about to come up (and his eyes _hurt_) and he's got the freaky suspicion that he's been bitten by a vampire, and possibly turned into one himself. So he doesn't really know what's going to happen when the sun _does_ come up. Is he gonna disintegrate? Burst up in flames? Explode all over the place, like something out of a B-class movie?

It's in the middle of a mild –but rising fast- panic attack that he can start feeling a cold, cold sensation running over his entire body; it's something akin to submerging yourself in freezing water, but so intense that he can feel pins and needles everywhere. After that, it all stops. The pain, the headache, the stinging sensation in his eyes. It all just _stops_.

And just like that, with a groan and an _oh shit, i'm so fucked_ he drifts towards unconsciousness again.

The next time he wakes up, he's lying on his own bed. And there's no ache anywhere.

He is just seriously freaked out, because_ that _wasn't a dream or an hallucination; he's damn sure that he was bitten by that Maga chick, and that at some point along the night he woke up somewhere that so wasn't his room.

"Oh, Noah. You're awake." His mother is peeking through the door. She sounds nonchalant and even, but her eyes are betraying the ruse. She has dark bruises under them, and they look shiny and depthless. The way they always do when she's worrying sick about something.

Puck kind of feels guilty about how frequently his ma wears that look on her face., and how frequently that 'something' she worries about has to do with him.

"What happened, ma?" He asks, sitting up, voice hoarse and raspy. His throat hurts a little when he tries to talk, and swallowing his spit proves to be a little more challenging than it should.

His ma comes into the room and sits next to him on the bed, pushing her hand onto his forehead. "That's what I've been wanting to ask _you_, bubbala." She stops, looking him up and down for a while, before continuing. "Some woman brought you home this morning. She didn't say where she found you, or what happened to you; she just asked me if I was your mother, carried you up here from her car, and then she left."

She looks sort of impressed for a second or two, and Puck can't blame her, he's not by any means _fat_, but he is a little weighty, considering all his muscle.

"I was so worried about you that I didn't ask her any questions. And I don't really remember anything about her other than how strong she was. Can't remember how she looked like, or what her car looked like. It's a bit strange. Can you remember her? Did she do something to you? You look like roadkill, honey. "

He tries to remember La Maga. He's not that surprised when the only thing that he can recall about her are sharp teeth and the soft mewl she let out when she sank them into his throat, breaking skin too easily.

"Ma, I think she did something really creepy to me."

He tells her the whole story.

He has_ fangs_. They are pointed and very disturbingly white, and _long_. But they sort of retreat when he wants them to, so that's kind of cool. Also, he has these badass bite marks on his neck that make him look studly and debauched.

Eveything else (asides from the way he looks paler and wrecked, but that will probably fade away in no time) is pretty much the same, he has a reflection, he's not allergic to garlic or some shit like that, and he definitely isn't harmed by the sun's presence (though he does feel tingly and a bit uncomfortable if he is in direct exposure for a while), and thank fuck, he doesn't _sparkle_.

In fact, everything is so _normal_ that his mother's first reaction is a coldly skeptical one, not that Puck will blame her, because he would've probably reacted the same way if anyone had come up to him and told him _Hey dude, guess what? I'm a vampire. Awesome, right?_

(Either that or he'd have laughed on this sorry loser's face and then tossed them in the dumpster just for trying to play smart.)

But then they discover his_ fangs_, and after that, in capricious experimentation, Puck lifts his bed –his mother perched on it, a bit terrified and trying to avoid hitting her head with the ceiling- with one hand. And yes, Puck's always had the best guns around, but even _he _knows that he wouldn't have been able to do that yesterday.

So, yeah. A vampire. With fangs. And super-strenght. And, also, a steady pulse and the need to breathe and, like, eat (which makes him think that as far as vampires go, he's kind of weird).

By the time Sunday comes around his mother and him have looked just about everywhere for information on his condition. They've gone through books upon books about vampires (from classical lit to trashy preteen romances, to books on different myths about them), have scouted almost every site in English on the Internet, and read every single medicine book they could get their hands on. Puck's never read this much in his_ entire life. _

But at least they have a little more knowledge when they are done.

From what he's gathered he's not dead, which he already knew since _hey, his heart is still beating_, nor is he going to live eternally (that, somehow, makes him feel a little better) or be eternally sixteen. He's just got some sort of _unconventional_(odd like hell) disease that will have him craving blood at least once every week for the rest of his life, and a less than mild sensitivity to the sun that he probably won't even notice unless he spends a whole summer day sun-bathing or something like that.

"Noah, you are a vampire. A _vampire_. How cool is that?" Sarah looks so excited, so utterly childish –in this merry way that he almost never sees anymore from her- that Puck can feel his heart sort of melting in a way that's not that manly, and he'll never really admit to to anyone ever.

"Damn cool."

_All in all, it's not that bad_ is what he concludes.

That is, until Monday. Because Monday means _school_, and school means _people_, and people means discovering there's another unforeseen development to this unusual illness of his, a development that nobody has written any-fucking-thing about anywhere..

As soon as he's on McKinley's hallways, he's hit by about a thousand different enticing scents, and all this colorful shapes, and a solid wall of sound, and this intense surge of arousal. Serious arousal. Not that inherent little cloud of horniness that always sort of lingers around a red-blooded teenage boy. Full on arousal, with a painful boner.

Which is all sorts of weird, because he can't really tell what about the whole mixture of things he's perceiving with his newly acquired heightened senses is getting him this hard; and it is also all sorts of uncomfortable, because he's just sprung one in the middle of the halls for no discernible reason, and even though he's always been an extremely sexual individual (and prided himself on it), this hasn't happened to him since he was about _twelve_.

He takes this on stride however and just sets his mind on solving the problem at hand and getting on with his finds a pretty dark haired Cheerio (Melissa, perhaps? Or maybe Jessica) that's always been sort of slutty and convinces her to have a quick fuck in one of the janitor's closets.

It's good, despite the fact that it's quick and a little painful, it's better than he remembers, hotter. It's all slick skin with soft –almost invisible- hairs, and a steady rythm of breathy moans that make him want to stick himself inside this girl's mouth and feel the keening noises surrounding his dick.

They finish and it's _good_, it's just not _enough_. When this Melissa chick smiles lewdly and pleased at him, and walks away with a contented and lazy spring to her step, he can just feel that it isn't nearly enough. He's still got the same prickling sensation all over that's asking him to _snap_ and _get off_, even with his spent cock innocuously tucked in his trousers, he's still full of primal desires and this itch that's impossible to scratch.

He tries to ignore it and heads off for first period.

By the end of second period he knows that whatever this is, it isn't going away. He's too distracted to even try to pay attention (not that he's ever done it, but he's never _lacked_ the capacity to), there's too much noise, and too much of those alluring smells everywhere, and he is having too much trouble staying focused on anything, even Finn has already noticed that something's wrong with him, and that must mean that it is fucking obvious, because Finn is about the less observant person to ever exist.

He skips third period to get it on with a pretty blond senior girl that had some class or other with him last year. She blows him on the boy's locker rooms, all lingering doe eyes that she's probably learnt from porn, and dirty slurping sounds that make him grab her hair a little harder and grunt like a feral creature.

After that, he returns the favour going down on her while womdering how she'd look on her hands and knees for him.

When they've both come she emmits a breathy laugh and says, casually:

"You're never this enthusiastic, Puck."

Something inside him starts churning, slowly, and he's hit by a vague wave of nausea and by that soft voice of hers coming from nowhere, tinted with an invisible sneer _I wonder what's going on with him now. Maybe he's gotten another cheerleader pregnant. __  
><em>  
>He bolts.<p>

By the time the school day's ending, Puck's been lying down in the nurse's office for about an hour, perhaps. He knows the nurse would've had kicked his ass out of here quite a long time ago under any other circumstances (they haven't been on the best terms since she discovered that Puck has essentially lied to every single nurse the school has ever hired just to get out of math), but he's thrown up at least twice, and there's no way he can fake that.

She doesn't know what's wrong with him, either, and he really can't explain precisely _what_ the problem is. He's in some sort of sensory overload, everything is too intense, too much, and still, not _enough_; there's a lacking something that's driving him crazy, reducing him to jerky movements and half-formed thoughts and a strong reminiscence of pain.

"Noah?" He's got his eyes closed, in the hopes that that will keep the strong imageries at bay, but he can easily recognize Hummel's voice. "Are you okay? Mr. Schue sent me to see how you were doing, we're about to start glee."

"I'm sick, Hummel. I'm definitely not in the mood to listen to Berry's screeching today." And he's really not up to the spasms he's probably going to feel if he's got to sit in the choir room with twelve people that on a good day make him slightly homicidal, and not up to wanting to fuck at least a half of them right there in the middle of the rehearsal.

He's so lost thinking about all the reasons why going to glee today's not a fucking good idea that he doesn't notice that Hummel's getting closer until the guy's putting his soft hand on his forehead. "You're not warm, so you probably aren't running a fever. Have you been faking illnesses to avoid math class again?"

Puck's about to tell him not too kindly to go away when he notices that, all of a sudden, he feels better. Everything has gone silent around him, he can't hear anymore _thoughts_ -after that second girl, he'd started hearing them everywhere, voices without an embodiment that were starting to drive him crazy -, and the smells are still there, but floating around sort of unobstrusively; when he opens his eyes, the colors in the room have stopped swirling and trying to merge with one another.

"Noah? Hey, are you alright? Okay, maybe you _are _sick, after all." Hummel says, and takes his hand away from Puck's forehead, and he almost whimpers pathetically at the loss.

And right then he looks at Hummel (who's all worried blue eyes and curled pink mouth and soft, pale skin; and when Puck focuses, he can hear the way his heart is beating in a fast rhythm that makes him want to put his ear to the other boy's chest) in shock, and that hunger of sorts that's been growling and tearing him up all day is quelled by an abrupt and focused _want_ for the little dude that's staring at him with a half-concerned-half-annoyed expression.

"Ohl, shit."

Kurt lifts an eyebrow at him in bemusement and he's nearly blinded by the impulse to get the guy naked and see what it would take to make him lift both eyebrows during sex.

_Maybe if you bit him..._ Something sultry and coercing inside of him suplies.

"Oh, _shit._" 


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh, _shit_."

"Okay, Noah Puckerman, you're officially weirding me out, so I'll just head off and tell Schue that you have some sort of -surprisingly non-venereal- disease and let you have as many uncomprehensible freak outs as you want, on your own.."

If Puck weren't strangely atuned to absolutely everything about the other boy right now, he would've believed in the set of his face that had gone from –half-annoyed-half-concerned to bored and coldly uninterested as he voiced those words and started walking away.

Puck, however, can listen to Hummel's heart beating faster and faster –trying painfully to hit the ribcage, or claw through skin and jump away from his body-, can feel the way his blood is flowing hot and rushing all over his body, can smell the way Hummel feels (and the way he lives, and the way he wants, and loves, and a lot of other unexpected things), can see the stiffness in the shoulders, the resolute fierceness of his legs moving in tandem with the hips that are swaying a little less than normal.

As he walks away, Puck knows that Kurt Hummel is actually _scared_.

When Hummel reaches the door. the same part of himself that had wanted to bite Kurt growls at him desperately and fills him with words that at one point or another spell out _bring him back, don't let him go away; touch him, bite him, keep him._

"So, what? You are Edward fucking Cullen, now? Because that's totally not sexy, Puckerman"

Santana leers at him from where she is lying on the bed , gorgeous, bewitching, and vicious like a fucking poisonous snake. Her hair is floating all over one of his pillows, and her fingers are clutching one of his blankets, and her smirk could freeze him and melt him and puncture him like a knife.

He smiles at her from his cheap swivel chair, and is about to answer with a leer of his own and an _I'll show you sexy, Lopez_, but he's way too tired to even try to fuck her the way she'll demand him to ( hard and bruising and fast and long), and also he's reveling in the lax calm that's flooding through him since he left the nurse's office after the Hummel thing (he tries not to think about what it is, or could've been, that brought him down from the frenzy, because all of the possible answers make him anxious) .

"Shut up, bitch." He answers, instead, and she rolls her eyes at him. After a few seconds however, she gets up from the bed and walks over to him and tells him: "You're a manwhore, dude, and you are annoying most of the time, but I like you. So I'm glad that that crazy chick didn't kill you."

She kisses him on the cheek, in one of her few and far in-between tender moments, and goes back to McKinley for Cheerio practice.

When she's left him, he can help but think that he's glad she's his girl. She's a pretty good listener, once you get past her venomous outbursts and sharp barbs here and there; also, he knows for a fact that she can keep a secret, she's got enough dirt on him by now that he she could've used to make his life suck and hasn't, that he knows that she's trustworthy.

His period of gratefulness last about five minutes, which is how long it takes for him to receive a text from her that says

_u should stop playin dumb and totes think bout what happnd 2day w/ kur, puck . i think sumthin's goin on. maybe u r also queer now__ bb_

... Which is when he starts taking back anything even remotely nice that he's ever thought about her, and when he starts regretting telling her all the details from today's incidents, because frankly? His girl or not, Santana's a _bitch_.

Regardless of all of Puck's protests, his ma sends him to school on Tuesday.

("No, seriously, ma. I can hear people's _thoughts_."

"Noah, bubbala, you need to deal with this."

" ... Ma, I wanna have sex with practically _everyone_."

" ...And how's that any different from any other teenager to ever exist?")

He expects to be hit by the dizzling sensations of hundredths of things drowning him and crazing him and making him hard and prickly and stupid and desperate and aching, but as he walks towards the school gates, he feels oddly okay. Normal, almost.

_Almost_ because he still hears people louder, and sees everything starker and bolder, and the smells are pungent (and holy _Christ_, doesn't Jacob know what the fuck a deodorant _is_?).

But everything is mostly okay. There's no insane need to get off, and he doesn't break into a cold sweat. He's not _comfortable_, he thinks while making his way to hiis locker, but he's probably going to adapt.

And it's at that fine point –three feet away from his destination and halfway down the way to convince himself that this vampire thing is gonna work out okay for him- that the universe decides that it just wants to keep fucking him over because it is one hell of a way to spend its free time.

Because right then, right there, Kurt Hummel decides to make an appearance. And that thing about feeling almost normal? Yeah, not really. Not even beginning to comprehend what the word means.

The guy is dressed in his cheerleading outfit (and he can hear Coach Sylvester's voice trailing Hummel, barking at him that his lungs need to be trained thoroughly in order for his singing not to entirely embarrass her), his hair is marginally dishevelled, his cheeks are flushed in about three different shades of pink –as is his neck, in irregular places-, and there are barely visible traces of moisture ( he can picture the boy mouthing the word _perspiration_, seductively) here and there.

The sight makes him instantaneously antsy, makes him want to flex his fingers in a hectic fashion for as long as it takes for his brain to stop sending him inappropriate signals about what it wants him to do, until he stops feeling warm and quivery.

But that's not the most unnerving part The part that really disturbs him is that he can tell that Kurt's been working out not just by his slightly disarrayed appearance (the which he's pretty sure nobody else can really notice), but by the way he _reeks_ of it.

Kurt reeks of sweat and exertion, of having done laps and push ups, and having done those crazy high kicks, and done that hardass tumbling Santana and Brittany've extensively moaned and whined about at some time or the other. He smells like hard work, and something _else_.

He smells like a _man_. He smells rough, wet, _dirty_. He smells musky and spicy, and _Jesus fucking Christ_ he can smell the way his groin is slightly sweaty, too. The way it's scented as skin and _pubic hair_ and that one unsmistakable smell that only a _dick_ has, that somewhat acrid and salty tinge that's pure _dick_..

And Puck's never been _gay_ (he's never even gotten off on how women smell), fuck, but his mouth is watering and he's so hard it's ludicrous and he can picture a million different things he's like to do to and with Hummel's dick. When a much too real fantasy of feeling the guy's dick engorging in his mouth assaults him, he groans. Half pained, half turned on.

"Oh, Puckerman, you loser." That's Santana's voice, and Santana's strong grip on his arm as she drags him away, but he can't really see her, "you're salivating in public and he's been gone for like a minute, you perv."

In the still darkness of one of the unused classrooms Puck's head clears a bit, and as Santana unbuckles his jeans' belt, he's set to awareness of what is about to happen. And though he feels horny in the same desperate edging terrifying way that he'd felt the day before, something is _off_.

Santana is groping him and they're grinding against one another like two uncoordinate ragdolls, and it's the very definition of hot. It's always been the very definition of hot between them, that's why they keep falling into bed together.

But right now, it's... It's... It's not even 'not enough'.

She latches her mouth onto his neck and starts sucking a mark that will be violent and enraged and red for everyone to see (not a claim, but merely the only way she knows to make people feel how much they mean to her in life, always sexual and hard and possessive, barely functional as a human being), and her hand finds her way to his cock and...

"Oh, Puckerman, you _loser._" She mutters, chuckling evilly, as she touches his limp member.

"Oh, _shut up_ and go finger your gilfriend or something."

With a teasing smik and a last jeering tug at his junk, she answers _hell yes, I will_ and is gone.

And he's not hard anymore, but ants are crawling under his skin and his heart is beating a mile a minute, his fangs are starting to show on their own accord and his blood is boiling, and... and he envisions himself biting Kurt's milky white tighs and sucking his blood in a leisurely pace, just to lick the marks when he's done, and trail his tongue all the way up to...

Oh, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

(When he sees Santana again in second period, she makes a vulgar motion with her hand and mouth that is clrearly miming a blowjob; he flips her off; she laughs, and laughs, and _laughs_.)

When he gets home he punches a hole through his bedroom door ... Well, in fact, at first there's a hole, then the thing ends up splitting in half, and his mother grounds him for about a month.

On Wednesday the _hunger_ –that lust that doesn't fade away, no matter who he fucks and how he fucks them-, the sickening sensations of being filled by everyone else's lives, the increased and throbbing sensibility to the world's _everything_, strike again.

All this is accompanied by the _grotesque_ (all that reading he did with his ma about the whole vampire thing had _broadened_ his vocabulary, if nothing else) urge to slam someone (someone, someone, _someone_, not _Hummel_, not necessarily _Hummel_) against a wall and drink their _blood_. Which shouldn't come as much of a shocking concept, because well, yeah, _vampire_. But, still.

He's... he's seen pictures in his mind, he's had fantasies (non-stop, countless of them since Monday, all of them feature white white _white_ skin and tearing tissue and perfect pressure and the slow maddening flow of a red thick liquid covering his tongue, passing through his throat), but this is not an abstract sort of thing. This is very much _here_, very much _present_, it's a _yearning_.

When his mind is being filled with random strings of consciousness that go from _I'm so gonna flunk math, shit_ to _I just can't stand this pathetic mediocrity parade anymore. People are so disgusting, I wish someone would stand up and say something, anything, and make all these things _stop (words overlapping, meanings dropping), and the physical impact of everything else is making him _sick_, he ends up doing something incredibly stupid.

He skips third period (and when his math teacher tries to make him get into the classroom he just scowls at the poor guy and spits out at him a _fuck this noise_ so quietly violent that the fourty-something man goes pale and leaves him alone in less that a second), goes around the corridors of McKinley High following a breathy chant of incomprehensible french-sounding words and the steady beating of a medium sized heart until he's barging inside of _Kurt_'s french class, then he just walks up to him –the kid's eyes are wide and disbelieving, and his mouth is parted in astonishment, and he looks _edible_-, grabs him by the front of his fancy clother, lifts him up from his chair, and procceeds to _kiss him_. Harshly, with clashing teeth and frantic tongue-prodding to make the other guy open his mouth.

When their appendages collide, Kurt makes a squeaky noise that shouldn't be sexy at all, but _is_. Puck moans against his best judgement, trailing his hands down Kurt's sides and planting the heels of his hands on his hips, splaying his finger in a possessive clutch.

Right then, it seems, Kurt's brain catches up with all what's happening and he extricates himself from Puck's hands and mouth, looking flabbergasted, flushed, and pretty much the most pissed off he's ever seen him

"What are you _doing_?" He hisses, embarrassment claiming him when he notices that everybody else's eyes are glued to them.

And, yes, everyone else in the room may be staring at them in varying states of shock but nobody makes a sound or moves a single muscle, which suits Puck just fine because this is none of their fucking business, anyway.

Still, when he locks eyes with a flustered Kurt, he can't come up with an explanation that will sound at least mildly sane (and he's not ready to explain this weird vampire thing to Kurt in front of thirty other people), so he mumbles a few jumbled obscenities and leaves in as much of a hurry as he arrived in, Kurt's voice following him in an indignant yell of _come back here, you brute!_

He ends up turning off his cellphone (because this is seriously going to be all over the school in less than an hour and the last thing he wants to do is talk to any of the Glee kids), ditching the rest of the day and getting a shady looking guy outside a liquor store to buy him a bottle of Jack, because it's been that sort of day.

He tries to ignore the fact that even though his body has relaxed magically and he's very much in control of most of his abbilities right now, there's a gnawing sensation at the pit of his stomach that keeps whispering _go back to him_ in a voice that has lost its sultry quality to gain an iron edge of commandment.

(Also, Jack Daniels' never tasted so shitty before.)

His mother wakes him up on Thursday morning by throwing a glass of freezing water (with _ice cubes_) at him. She doesn't look mad at him, but there's a vibe of annoyance rolling off of her, when she puts the glass on his computer desk.

"I don't care how hangover you are, bubbala, you are getting your ass off to school right _now_."

The implicit threat makes him obey without any kind of second thoughts.

He's on his way to school when he turns his cellphone on again, just to see what kind of disaster is gonna be waiting for him; there are fifteen new messages, seventeen lost calls, and six voice mails.

He opens a few of the messages. The first one is from Santana.

...Okay. Well A picture of a dude giving another dude a blowjob, hilarious.

(He'd honestly thought that she'd send something worse, though, so it's pretty much a win. Or as much of a win as anyone –except for Brittany- ever gets with Santana.)

The next one he opens is from Finn: _dude u made out w my lil bro? wtf man?_

The one that he reads after Finn's is Aretha's. It's a thorough description of all the things she's planning to cut off of him, and what she's planning to do with said parts after they've been severed from the rest of his body if he doesn't apologize to her boy.

He doesn't look at any of the other messages.


	3. Chapter 3

"So, Puckerman. I've heard from Azimio that you've finally gone queer on us." Is the first thing he hears once he's made his way past the school gates and starts making his way towards his locker.

Karofsky's waiting there for him, looking disgusted. The words are hurled at him with pure hatred, which makes Puck's muscles tense in anticipation. He's feeling better this morning (he isn't even hangover, which is maybe due to his condition; either that, or a fucking miracle), thanks to the kiss he stole from Kurt, but there's still a dark shadow making itself known inside of him that would really like the opportunity to kick somebody's ass.

"Oh, yeah? And what're you gonna do about it?" He stands up in front of the bulky teenager, baring his teeth in a menacing scowl and cracking his knuckles. Karofsky stands straighter and starts raising his right fist to throw the first punch; he can practically see it in slow motion. He grabs the boy's arm in a strong hold and looks him in the eyes, to psyche him out. That is when he hears, loud and clear:

_I hate you, Puckerman. I hate you, I__ fucking hate you. Why the fuck do you get him? He's not yours._

That makes his eyes widen, and his grip on the other guy's limb tighten. It _can't_ be. Then he starts seeing things. Seeing things that belong to Karofsky's mind, seeing the things the other boy's thinking about as he grunts in pain. There's... There's a lot of Kurt in there. He can see flashes of Kurt _everywhere_. There's Kurt in the cafeteria line, and Kurt answering a question in biology, and Kurt in his Cheerios' uniform; Kurt in Glee, Kurt walking down the halls, Kurt laughing with Mercedes, Kurt, Kurt, _Kurt_.

There's a thousand images. But there's one that stands out. He can see Kurt getting all up on Karofsky's grill in one of the boys' locker rooms, there's... there's yelling and he can feel that something tremendously bad is about to happen because the Karofsky in this memory is getting increasingly worked up.

...Karofsky _kisses_ Kurt. The image repeats itself over and over. He can see the way Kurt's fist comes up to his mouth, the way his eyes look big, innocent, _scared_; he can see the way he pushes Karofsky away when he tries to kiss him a second time. After that, there's shoving against lockers, winks, _pain_; the last thing he sees is Kurt saying something that may've been 'I don't want you near me.', followed by Karofsky doing something so incredibly _creepy_ that...

Suddenly he can hear a pained scream filling his ears, the sound of a bone cracking, and a string of profanities mixed with incoherent sounds coming from his own mouth, even though he can't know for sure what he's saying.

He isn't totally aware of what's happening, but he can feel the way his fists are starting to hurt, he can also smell blood. A lot of blood. Some of it is his, but most of it is coming from Karofsky.

He can feel somebody trying to pull him away from the other guy, can register someone's voice (it might be Finn's, the frantic repetitions of _dude, calm down. Duce, calm the fuck down!_ sound too much like him for them to be coming from someone else), but he's lost all control over his own body.

"_Noah!_"

That's Kurt. He can hear him, he's running up to him. He can't see him because there's a red haze blinding him, but he _knows_ Kurt's voice, and Kurt's step, and his scent, although now it's tinted with panic, and why is he panicking? What is happening?

"_Noah!_" This time the voice is right next to him. There's a soft hand curling itself around one of his arms, pulling with surprising strength. "Noah, _stop_!"

And he does. And at about that time, he murmurs Kurt's name and everything goes dark.

The next time he opens his eyes, Finn's looming over him, looking sort of green.

"_Dude_" Is the first thing that comes out from the gigantic teen.

"What?" He mumbles, fighting a wave of nausea and taking in his surroundings; it looks like he's lying on one of the infirmary's beds. He sits up slowly and catches sight of his bandaged hands.

"Dude, you got Karofsky sent to the _hospital_, on an_ ambulance_. You broke his... _everyhing_. And it didn't even take you five minutes. It was seriously _insane_. I thought you were gonna kill him." Finn answers, in one breath, fidgeting a bit and letting hiw nervousness show in a less subtle way.

_Karofsky._ With that name, everything comes back to him. And he's overcome by _rage_.

"I _should_ have killed him." He grits out.

"Oh, shit, you're doing that eye-thing again." Finn stands up and starts walking backwards towards the door.

"What 'eye-thing'? And sit the fuck down, Hudson, I'm not gonna break you." Finn's not precisely frightened, but there's a _smudge_ of fear coating the boy's presence that is irritating him, and he's already mad enough.

"Okay, okay." Finn comes back to the chair he'd been sitting on and plops down on it in an ungraceful manner that only accentuates the fact that he's a freakshow of a teenager, all long legs and arms, and no harmony at all.

"So?" He asks.

"So what?"

"Hudson, you can't be this stupid. The 'eye-thing'. What was that 'eye-thing' you mentioned?"

"Oh, right. Dude, your eyes are red." Finn states, shortly.

"Red?"

"Yes, man. Your eyes are... well, now they're sort of returning to their natural color. But a minute ago they were, like, crimson. And when you were... when you were fighting Karofsky, they'd been like that, too. It's freaky. Do you think you're sick or something?"

"I'm a vampire, Finn."

"Oh, that explains a lot." Finn says easily, but after a few seconds he lets out a _wait, what?_ and Puck starts explaining everything, slowly and with the smallest words he knows.

("So, this chick bit you and now you have superstrength and freaky mind-reading powers and, like, the abbility to tell who has bathed and who hasn't?"

"I also want to drink blood. And I kind of want to bone your brother."

"Dude, that's kind of messed up. Not that I think wanting to bone another guy is messed up! Besides we'd all kind of figured out that you kind of had a thing for Kurt already. Just the, you know, _drinking_ _blood_ part."

"Yeah, I know.")

After that, Finn asks him why he got so wild with Karofsky, and he relays every single thing he saw in the other jock's mind to Finn (it's a nice way to lift some of the weight of the situation from his shoulders); by the time he's retelling the kiss thing, Finn is staring at him in revolted disbelief.

When he's done, they don't really talk to each other for about an hour. Each of them has musings of their own to keep them entertained.

After a while, however, Puck notices that the nurse hasn't been in the office in all the time they've been here so he asks what that's all about.

"Oh," Finn starts, looking like he's thinking about something really hard, "she's on Figgins' office, I think."

"Why?"

"She's there with Kurt and Burt. They're trying to get you out of trouble by threatening to sue the school for about a dozen different things. I think they've got to do with all the stuff Karofsky pulled, y'know?"

_Kurt_. He can hear Kurt's voice if he concentrates hard enough. That makes him sweat a little, and get this unrelenting desire to find him and make sure that he's safe, make sure that Karofsky hasn't gotten his dirty hands on him again (along the thought comes an aggressive,_ corrosive_ jealousy for whoever else could 'get their hands' on Hummel). There's that seductive newborn part of him that keeps whispering to him _lock him up somewhere safe where only you can get to him_.

"Hey, Puck?" Finn cuts right through all those stalkerish thoughts, sounding strangely eager.

"Yeah?"

"Show me your fangs?"

When he's walking home that day, he starts feeling worn out. He's only just avoided Juvie, and he's had the weirdest conversations with his best friend, and there's pent up rage and frustration, and lust, and clouds upon clouds of steam that he doesn't know how to blow off.

On top of it all, he knows that Figgins' called his ma, which in combination with the stunt he'd pulled the day before means that he'll be grounded for the rest of the eternity.

When he gets to his house, anyhow, the only one there is Sarah, who's sprawled on the coach reading some thick book that looks too long and complicated for someone as young as her to fully grasp.

"Ma's got an extra shift today." Sarah says, without looking up at him, flipping a page with two fingers. "She told me to tell you that you better have a good explanation for what happened today, unless you want her to do something not very nice to you."

She sounds highly amused, he flicks her on the ear.

On Friday he's awoken an hour and a half before his usual call by his ma, who looks so honestly tired that it makes him want to do anything she ever asks him to, just to make her life that little bit easier.

"What happened, Noah? I thought that we were over this 'fixing problems through violence' thing." She stops and looks at him with a little sadness.

"Ma, listen, I don't know what happened, okay? I... remember I told you about hearing people's thoughts?" She nods her head slowly, and he takes her hand and freaks out about the way his mind just locked itself somewhere deep down when he saw all the things he saw; he tells her about losing his sight in fury, about red eyes. He tells her about Kurt pulling him away from the invisible chains of _hatred_, away from the clutches of the creature that's living inside of him.

... Just, in messier words. Waxing poetry about a boy to his ma makes him feel kind of like a girly girl, and that (vampire or not) is not a feeling he's okay with.

Also, he caves under her questioning gaze when he's talking about the way Kurt's small hand saved him from becoming a murderer and landing his ass in a place far worse than Juvie and tells her everything else. Tells her about the way that only Kurt can calm him down when he's on sensory overload, about being so finely attuned to the guy that if he put his mind into it he could probably tell her what he is doing right _now_ (_sleeping_, the obsessive side of him offers. _He's sleeping, and dreaming about something steamy_).

"Okay." Is what his mother says after he's finished his tale. She looks mostly uncomfortable (which is probably thanks to the fact that he really did tell her _everything_, with little to no censorship), but there's another emotion floating around her face that makes him curious. "So, that's new."

And he knows exactly what she's talking about, because his mind had gone to the exact same places. But he shrugs, anyways, because, by now? The gay part is the only one that makes sense.

After a moment or two, his mother clears her throat and asks something that he hadn't really paid much thought to, speaking in a way that sugests that she'd already known that.

"Did you like this Kurt boy before all this happened, bubbala?"

He'd like to say _no_, but he starts remembering things from before La Maga; he remembers how fucking amazing he found Kurt when he kicked that winning field goal, remembers the times he's burst out laughing at his clever comments, remembers all the times he's looked at the guy parading around the school as if everyone should be dropping on their hands and knees and licking his expensive boots and thought _badasss motherfucker_, remembers how he went to temple and prayed for the first time in forever when Kurt's dad was in a coma (he remembers downloading a dozen different versions to "I Want To Hold Your Hand"), and he's not sure anymore that _no_ would be a truthful answer.

His mother seems to understand, or to see something on his face that gives her the answer she needs, because she nods and stands up, resolutely.

When she's leaving, she says –feather soft, amazed, reminiscent of the way she used to talk to him when he was a child- _I think you're in love with this boy, bubbala._

When he gets to school, everyone –jocks and geeks and Cheerios and dorks alike- parts like the red sea to let him through (it would've made him feel like a total stud before, but right now the stench of fear and the tight ways everyone is holding themselves when he passes by them are making him jittery).

Okay, make that everyone but the people from Glee club. They just jump on him as soon as they catch sight of him and start asking obnoxious questions about his circumstances (because, _of course_, Finn wouldn't have known how to keep his mouth shut and would end up telling _everyone_), that's just the way they all roll. It's comforting, in its own farcical way.

Still, by the third time he's asked if he can still hold an erection, he kind of wants to either growl at them in his lowest register or commit suicide.

It doesn't slip his attention that the only one who doesn't try to come near him is Kurt. Kurt's smell is far away from him, in fact,, hidden in the depths of the choir room. The countertenor is in an indescribable mood that makes him want to simultaneously whimper and go do unforgivable things to and for him until he smiles, or cries, or breaks, or talks, or _something_.

It hurts in a way that's entirely too physical and half primal and half a tender whatever that he can't completely understand.

He tries to ignore the sissy inner pain that's trying to overwhelm any other emotion by concentrating on however many dumb queries his friends have.

It doesn't work perfectly (or at all), but it's all there's to it.

He's been trying to pay attention to his geography class for the last twenty minutes or so, when the world fades away so abruptly that it leaves him grasping at his desk until he feels the wood caving under the pressure, splitting up far too effortlessly.

He slips away from his chair and hits the floor in record time, sounds erupting all over like a badly reahersed movie. There are gasps, and girls going all 'oh-my-god-is-he-ok?' and boys going all 'dude-what-the-actual-fuck?', there's the raspy tone of his middle aged teacher telling someone to get the nurse.

He can feel the cold tiles beneath him, can feel the cold seeping through all the cracks, and he starts thinking _is this it? am i just going to die in the middle of a fucking school day?_

After that, he hears the nurse's strong bellows ("Give the kid some space!").

After that, he hears nothing at all.

After that, he just isn't anywhere anymore. He just... fades away.

(A hand takes hold of his, soft. A nose rubs against his ear. Then a puff of candid air wraps itself around a few words.

"You must seal the deal with a biting kiss. He has to be the first."

It's La Maga's voice. He wouldn't have been able to describe it before, because he'd forgotten everything about her in a suspicious way. But this voice? It's hers.

"You must take from him what you need and stay at his side." She says, hand dancing its merry way down one of his arms, beady nails scratching him in odd patterns."You must or you'll die.")

He wakes up. That's an event in itself, since he'd been sure that he was going to die. But he doesn't die, and he wakes up. And he wakes up to find Kurt sitting ramrod straight at his side, looking way too pale in his dark clothes.

(This waking up to other people staring at him thing is starting to get old.)

"Hey." He croaks out, not knowing what else to say ...Or not knowing what else to say other than a million needy things that would make him combust in shame induced flames after he's said them (things like _i don't know why you're here, but don't ever leave_).

"Hey, Noah." Is the answer he gets, so quiet that Puck's got a hard time hearing it over the furious beating of Kurt's heart.

"So, what happened?" He asks the question as an attempt to make the soft grimace that the other boy's wearing dissapear, to see if those dabs of gray will go away from his eyes once he's distracted enough, to see if the kid's natural warmth will replace the coldness that seems to have taken over him.

To stop the screaming, the whispering, the streams of consciousness that seem to be coming from any and all directions (and none of it is Kurt's. It's never been Kurt's.)

"You... you fainted." The boy starts, looking from Puck to one of the generic white walls before continuing. "You fainted, then you had seizures. Then you..."

He stops. Blinks his eyes a few times, blushes (the tips of Puck's fingers grow hot and heavy with the longing to reach out and chase the colors all the way down to his neck). Then he coughs, covering his mouth politely.

"Then I...?"

"Then you started calling his name, Puckerman." Santana makes her entrance, slamming the door on her way in and sitting down on his bed, smirking. He can see her hand reaching for his, though, she's shaken; he wouldn't have noticed before, but it's obvious now. "You started sobbing his name and thrashing around and it was all very gay."

"_You're_ very gay."

She rolls her eyes at him.

"Yeah, right." She looks at Kurt -who's gone back to impersonating a stick- for a few seconds and then back at him, eyebrows curving attractively. "Pot, kettle. "

That makes _him_ roll his eyes at _her_.

"Anyway, I'm gone. I only wanted to make sure that you were not dead or something, that one would've been hard to explain to Ruth and Sarah." She lets her façade slip for a short moment, squeezing his hand. But it's all done before even he can fully acknowledge it. "I always liked them better than you."

Once she's left, the room is swallowed by silence.

"We should talk about this." Is the first thing to leave Kurt's mouth, when the stillness in the room has started to make the two of them uncomfortable. "We... We should talk about this, and figure something out. Because everything is sort of absurd right now, and I'm not altogether convinced that this is not some sort of carbohydrate-induced nightmare, or that we haven't magically transported ourselves to a García Márquez book and-"

"And you're rambling." He says, too soft, snaking his hand to take one of Kurt's (that alone? That single touch? It's heaven. And the way that Kurt's fingers just interweave with his? That's dying, being reborn and discovering joy.). "Also, I think I love you."

"You _what_?" Kurt panics, blue eyes opening so wide they make him look crazed, lips parted an inch or two.

Puck repeats it, squeezing the long fingers he's holding. He reapts it once, twice, a third time. Then, he talks. He talks for a long time, while Kurt listens (it turns it he, too, is a great listener).

When the nurse comes back from where she'd been dealing with a nasty chemical disaster that had left a few kids a little poisoned and reeking of sulfur, she finds Kurt and Puck sharing a very tentative first (or second, technically speaking) kiss.

She's not amused, but Puck honestly doesn't care a shit. Because this is the best he's felt in weeks, even with the thirst clawing up through him and trying to get him to _bite_ and damn all the consequences.

_Seal the deal with a biting kiss_, he keeps hearing. He will. Just not now. Maybe tomorrow, or on Sunday; or maybe even on Monday, if he can manage to wait that long, but now he wants to enjoy this state of being where nothing _itches_, and nothing is _lacking_, where the shapes are defined but not overwhelming, the sounds are at bay, the scents aren't intruding.

Right now, he wants this.

(He ends up doing it on Tuesday. Kurt lifts his neck like an offering and whispers _i know you need it_ and _i'm ready_ and Puck grips milky white shoulders and _drinks_.

And the way Kurt moans when he's done and licking the small wounds closed and sinking down to his knees to fulfill some of his fantasies, a low breathy sound that's filthy and sweet and perfect, makes all the wanting he's gone through worth it.)


End file.
